Another reason to love Milton Keynes: the UK's slowest broadband

It's safe to say that the town-sized roundabout that is Milton Keynes has come in for its fair share of criticism over the years.

Now there's even more fodder for those looking to make the Buckinghamshire town the target of a few well placed jokes: MK officially has the country's slowest mobile broadband.

The dubious honour has been bestowed courtesy of broadband comparison site Top10.com, which reveals that Milton Keynes' average mobile net speed is just 1.73Mbps, a full third down on the 2.62Mbps UK average.

In practical terms that means it takes mobile surfers around 10 seconds to download a typical web page.

Leicester and Huddersfield took second and third place in the list, while the biggest names further down the list were Liverpool in fifth and Birmingham down in 10th.

“Advancements in mobile communications technology will be crucial if Britain hopes to remain a economic force on the world stage and compete in the global marketplace,” Top10.com director Alex Buttle commented.

When I lived in the Welsh Borders, as recently as a couple of years ago, there was no such thing as mobile net. Sure it existed elsewhere but didn't function at all there, even broadband was something that the rest of the UK enjoyed. I finally got broadband there at a relatively stunning 512k, after 56k, though 128-400k was more realistic. It didn't stop every broadband supplier trying to sell 8MB even though they knew they couldn't deliver it.